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The reason Chelsea will never sell a player to Barcelona

There is a very simple reason Barcelona may never sign a player from Chelsea in the modern era.

That reason comes in the form of Chelsea’s current manager Jose Mourinho, who has never exactly shared a glittering relationship with the Spanish champions.

There has been plenty of speculation in recent days that Barcelona will launch all out assaults on Chelsea this winter and next summer to try and get their hands on some of the club’s best players.

Petr Cech and Thibaut Courtois have both been suggested as possible replacements for Victor Valdes while David Luiz turned down an approach over the summer, with Juan Mata one of the latest players the subject of reported interest from the Nou Camp.

It’s very clear that Barcelona are looking to make improvements to their current squad which should make the top sides all over Europe a little bit twitchy at the prospect of big money bids.

However, Chelsea and the club’s supporters should feel relatively relaxed that none of their key players will be going to Spain any time soon.

Mourinho had several clashes with former Barcelona boss Pep Guardiola during his time in La Liga, as well as plenty of the officials that worked under the Spaniard as he created one of football’s greatest ever sides.

The pair were often entrenched in mind games based on attrition as they tried to outdo each other on a yearly basis in Spanish football.

It’s one of the things that is likely to have made Mourinho unhappy during his time in La Liga and he may well harbour resentment towards Barcelona as a club and an institution for the rest of his career.

It’s not unnatural for a manager to have a rivalry with a particular club but Mourinho’s reluctance to speak about his history with Guardiola in the recent Super Cup clash against Bayern Munich, could be a sign that he didn’t want to bring negative feelings back to the surface.

One of the things that was very striking about Mourinho on his return to Chelsea was how much happier he looked and how openly he was prepared to speak about his current Chelsea project.

In every single case, whether it’s Courtois or Mata, he has never said that he is looking to force a player out of the door, insisting that every member of his current squad has some sort of role to play in Chelsea’s season and future.

He’s backed up his claim that he was going to give younger players a chance with Kevin De Bruyne and Andre Schurrle among others featuring prominently in the team over the start of the season.

That means any youngster in the current Chelsea squad has no reason to leave because there is physical proof they will get game time if they keep their heads down and work hard to prove they are good enough.

Lewis Doe

Lewis Doe is a freelance writer and editor who seeks to bring you the biggest, smallest and most interesting stories from the football world. Lewis has previously written for some of the biggest football news and opinion sites in the world including FootballFanCast and Goal.com International. Lewis is also experienced writing in the betting industry and aims to deliver his stories with up to date factual and statistical information. He hopes to sum up stories for the site and provide an angle on the issue moving forward.Lewis is HITC Sport's La Liga correspondent.